When it comes to state lacrosse, Chris is the man.  I will not be there live this year; I’m a bit on the ill side and will probably need some medical attention to get through this.

Here’s a direct link to Chris’ blog:  phillylacrosse.com blog

PIAA BOYS LACROSSE CHAMPIONSHIP (updated with semifinals)

PIAA GIRLS LACROSSE CHAMPIONSHIP (updated with semifinals)

PIAA BOYS CLASS AAA VOLLEYBALL CHAMPIONSHIP BRACKET (complete)

PIAA BOYS CLASS AAA VOLLEYBALL POOL PLAY

PIAA BOYS CLASS AA VOLLEYBALL CHAMPIONSHIP BRACKET (complete)

PIAA BOYS CLASS AA VOLLEYBALL POOL PLAY

PIAA GIRLS SPRING SOCCER CHAMPIONSHIP BRACKET (updated with semifinals)

The new school, a merger of Indian Valley and Lewistown high schools that was approved by the Mifflin County School Board last week, will be in place next school year if current Mifflin County School District plans move forward. At current, there is no indication that anything will interrupt those plans, but with school mergers, anything can happen.

But here is what has happened: Indian Valley and Lewistown, both members of the Mountain League, were booted out of the Mountain League in 2012-2013, although the new school will have Mountain League schedules in most, if not all, sports for the next school year.

With the new school, which will be a mid-sized Class AAAA school in football and basketball, thrown out of the Mountain League, it is highly likely that the Mid-Penn Conference will accept the new school as a full member at the start of the next cycle.

On Thursday, the Mid-Penn Conference, as anticipated, accepted State College as an all-sports member; the Little Lions had been a football-only member since 2004. With Mifflin County between State College and Harrisburg, it makes adding Mifflin County a little more palatable to the Mid-Penn.

So palatable, in fact, the conference has included the Mifflin County school in its 2012-2013 and 2013-2014 schedules as a league member, despite the fact that no formal action has been taken on the Mifflin County matter.

In fact, the Mid-Penn, meeting at the same time as the Mountain League and unaware of the ML’s actions, would likely have passed the alignments that included Mifflin County had it not been for requests by Trinity and Steelton-Highspire to change basketball divisions. The conference will vote electronically next Wednesday on the alignments once Steel-High and Trinity resolve the issue. Assuming the Mifflin County school is included in those alignments, as they were on Wednesday, that’s a pretty good indication Mifflin County will have smooth sailing to Mid-Penn membership.

Sometimes I just provide links.

Sometimes I make people mad with my rankings or opinions.

Sometimes I even have someone agree with me.

But always, always, I wish the very best for everyone – athlete or not, coach or not, parent or not – because to think anything less would make me less than I can and should be.

I thank everyone for their patronage of RodFrisco.com this year. But far more than that, I wish everyone – Christian or otherwise – a very happy, safe and wonderful Christmas and holiday season.

Merry Christmas to all.

Fairly light menu, to be honest. The biggest news of the meeting occurred on Thursday night when the Board passed, on a first-reading basis, a proposal to advance the start of fall sports practice and playing dates by one week from the current PIAA calendar. The measure, if eventually passed in full by the Board of Directors, would be implemented for the 2012-2013 school year.

First, let’s make one thing clear: The proposal has not become PIAA policy yet. The measure must pass a second reading in January by a majority vote and by a two-thirds majority vote in March if it makes it that far. Thursday’s vote was 18-13, which shows the measure has support, but not the kind of overwhelming support required to implement the change. Frankly, it’s an uphill fight for the proposal; it will take 21 affirmative votes to pass the proposal.

A quick look at the financial game reports for fall sports shows that PIAA gate receipts are well behind last year’s fall sports receipts. Compared to last year’s receipts, PIAA is more than $23,000 behind last year’s total (football is not included in that number).

Updates will appear below the bar. The most recent update is at the top

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As expected, not much going on. The Board is down to a discussion stage on a number of matters that will not require Board action. I’m off to Hersheypark Stadium. Frisky out.

Lots of discussion on an important by-law: How the PIAA will count enrollment toward cooperative sponsorships. The PIAA is proposing to count 50 percent of a sending school’s enrollment toward a co-op rather than the current 100 percent. This seems like a reasonable and a good step toward alleviating the problem of bumping a host school up in classification.

Some Board members are bartering for an even greater reduction in percentage – District 5 rep Virgil Palumbo is asking for 25 percent – in orderto bring the percentage more in line with the actual number of students to go from a sending school to a host school.

There is a counter-argument that such a move would give a competitive advantage to the small number of schools that can engage in co-ops. And the proposal is tabled.

District 5 rep Virgil Palumbo makes a new proposal to lower the percent of enrollment used in a co-op to 25 percent. The measure passes on a first-reading basis, 22-7. The original proposal remains on the table.
Back in regular session.

Just finishing up a hearing for a Danville athlete. Will return to regular session shortly.

I spent the day refining and then actually giving a presentation to the District 3 Committee for a position with the district as its webmaster and director of corporate sponsorships.

I’m pleased to announce that the district, after some healthy discussion on the matter, has approved the job. I thank the committee, and especially chairman Sam Elias of Hershey and vice-chairman Ron Kennedy of Donegal, with deep gratitude.

In brief, I have been charged with upgrading the District 3 site and providing the site with daily content as well as establishing permanent features. In addition, District 3, much like District 7, is actively seeking corporate sponsorships for its championship events. I am thrilled to be the point man for this initiative. The district will be seeking everything from major sponsors (a la District 7) to low-cost sponsorships for specific sports.

I will have details soon on the new District 3 website, which I hope to have up by Christmas. In the meantime, if you are interested in sponsoring District 3 championships at any level or know of an individual or business that is interested in the same, please feel free to contact me at rod@rodfrisco.com or call me at 717-919-5144. I will be happy to explain District 3′s different levels of sponsorship that are designed to work with any budget.

Now, what does this mean for RodFrisco.com? Is this the end of the site? Hardly.

What will happen with RodFrisco.com is a shift in philosophy, but not in content. I’ll be less of a reporter / blogger (because of time), but still very heavy on daily information. I will have to streamline my time and some of the information. I’ll have shorter, to-the-point blog posts and more links directly to the information.

I still intend to cover PIAA championships andpost everything I can related to PIAA news. For example, I’ll cover Friday morning’s PIAA Board of Directors meeting as well as all four football championship games this weekend.

But are some things that will necessarily change. For instance, I know some readers are looking for District 3 wrestling rankings on the site, but unfortunately, I cannot so them for two reasons. Now that I am actively working for District 3, I do not believe it is ethical for me to post district rankings, which are an opinion. It could be construed as the official position of District 3, and that cannot ever be the case. In addition, I am doing the team wrestling power ratings, which will formally qualify and seed the District 3 team Championships. I cannot be in the position of putting up my own rankings while working the official ratings; it’s a conflict of interest, and neither District 3 nor I can be in that position.

So I have to back away from my own rankings, but I’ll be happy to post the rankings of others. As such, things will change a little, but not in a way that’s detrimental to the readers of RodFrisco.com, readers for which I am extremely grateful.

Thanks to all who have chosen RodFrisco.com since the site launched in February. The site isn’t going away. In fact, it will have a sharper focus as a result of my work with District 3.

Keep checking. There will be plenty of items on the site in the coming days, weeks and months.

Rod

From bill on Contact us #

Rod, Wonderful effort—-a grand display by you to keeping good things going. Can we send a donation or tribute? …

Well, first of all, many thanks to the otherwise anonymous Bill. Comments like that help keep my enthusiasm level high.

But Bill did bring up that rather sensitive subject of money. This gives me an opportunity to make a little pre-emptive announcement.

As a dot com, I cannot accept donations toward the site. I run a (very) small business, subject to the laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and those fine folks at the Internal Revenue Service. So any income I derive through the website must come in the form of either sales or sponsorships.

I am on the cusp of seeking both. Soon – very soon – I will have some RodFrisco.com gear available for sale. No, you won’t have a slick, four-color brochure to peruse. I will have just one product to start: Simple, white T-shirts with the red-and-black RodFrisco.com logo across the front.

I will make those shirts available for sale via the website in a week or so; I still have to set up my PayPal account and install it on my site.

If you like the site, please consider purchasing one as a way of supporting the site. They will be sold a small profit, the monies of which will be used to support the site.

I do not plan on making RodFrisco.com a subscription site … ever. That’s not a great business decision, to be honest, but I have always believed that the information on the site should not be for sale. I just want readers throughout the state and beyond to have a vault of information that they can access 24/7 without the annoyance of logging in or even paying a small fee for the privilege.

The simple fact is I love covering and commenting on Pennsylvania high school sports and have since I wandered into The Progress of Clearfield 37 years ago looking for a job answering phones (thanks, Fred Kavelak!). It’s a passion, and passion doesn’t have a price.

The T-shirts will, though. But it will be a reasonable one. Look for the announcement soon.

And thanks to all who have viewed the site (just about 400,000 and growing since February).

You can join the chat tomorrow here at 7 p.m. And yes, you can make fun of my rankings. A little bit.

Just a reminder: I’ve written and posted precious little on anything but football this fall, but I will begin posting post-season information of district and PIAA fall championships ASAP. As I’ve said since the site launched in February, that’s my primary mission.

Erie Times-News lead scholastic writer Tom Reisenweber, a rising star among the state’s high school writers, authored all three with an assist from columnist John Dudley, who formerly covered high school wrestling for the Times-News. John still does the occasional football game or wrestling match for the paper.

The stories are here, here and here.

The series is not just crafted well, it does an excellent job of opening a window on how PIAA districts operate. There are substantial similarities and differences in the operations of the 12 districts, but once you read through the series, you will have a pretty good idea how districts do their business across the state.

I’ll let the details speak for themselves, but I do want to comment on one important aspect of the stories: Tom and John did an excellent job of skewering the notion that districts are not oligarchies, as they seem to be so often portrayed. That simply is not the case, and the Erie stories do a nice job of exploding that and some other myths. I doubt that was the Times-News’ intent. Rather, that’s what happens when reporters are committed to fairness.

In the last few months, I’ve become more intimate with the operation of District 3, now that I am a paid independent contractor facilitating the field hockey and girls volleyball power ratings. I did not regularly cover District 3 meetings (out of sheer sloth, if I can be so honest) while I was at The Patriot-News, but I can tell you this. The District 3 Committee is dedicated to doing the right thing for interscholastic athletics in District 3.

That occasionally results in disagreement and debate, but it should be comforting that District 3 (as well as other PIAA districts) are not monochromatic either in their outlook or their make-up. I’ve been called an apologist and even a shill for PIAA (and to a much lesser degree its districts) many times over the years. That’s never bothered me because I found out years ago that PIAA is not the smoky, back-room poker game in which it has been so improperly characterized.

This series is worth your time no matter what section of the state you reside.

Since it failed to discuss any public vs. private issues in Strategic Planning, I’m not sure that it will come up tonight.

Moment of silence for Rich Constantine, Uniontown principal and WPIAL chairman, who passed away during the summer at the age of 63 after a tough battle with cancer. Nice touch, and wholly appropriate. Rich was a good man.

This doesn’t appear to be a “big issue” meeting. The agenda is loaded with snooze-y items. I’ll do my best to keep it readable.

Business manager Greg Biller gives the Board good news. Despite the horrible economy that battered ticket sales in some sports, the PIAA will be in the black by approximately $190,000. That’s a very strong number considering the football revenues were short of budget, but PIAA has worked to control expenses in order to attain a profitable bottom line.

OK, still in sleepy land. Something about Act 48 credits. I acknowledge my ignorance.

It’s pretty sluggish right now.

Whew, more reports than a high school English class. Lot of bone, no meat right now.

The chat right now is about student leadership conferences. Very good stuff for the participants, but not exactly the stuff the third-and-long crowd is interested in. (I’m a charter member of the third-and-long crowd.)

I’m not holding out on you, folks. Most of what has happened is pretty much in-house stuff that has very little to do with the fan-at-large.

Finally, some action, and it’s on junior high football.

In July, the Board adopted an interpretation on junior high football that made any 7th or 8th grade football players ineligible for participation in the current season if that player engaged in a youth league (with contact) prior to the start of the PIAA defined season.

Naturally, this caused some problems. Some players, possibly unaware of a late-summer PIAA ruling, did participate in a community league before the official start of PIAA practice. Some of those cases made it to district committees. District 7 heard three cases and, following the interpretation, made all three players ineligible. Those players went back to their youth programs and have not played junior high or middle school football.

But in District 1, the interpretation was waived in three cases in part because two of the three players ended up with no youth team to return to.

As a result, a motion was made to completely eliminate the interpretation and, in the words of Board president Rod Stone, “get the PIAA out of the business” of regulating community youth football.

It seemed to be a wise move, all things considered. But PIAA counsel Alan Boynton pointed out that the PIAA still had jurisdiction on the length of season, and if a player participated in a youth program after the end of the season, that player would then be inegible to participate in the following season.

It created considerable conversation. In the end, no action was taken by the Board, but it will take up the matter at the next meeting, almost certainly to eliminate the current interpretation and to ensure that all athletes are aware of the eligibility ramifications of PIAA rules.

Here’s a good one: District 10 chairman Wally Blucas, an ardent supporter of a return to strictly East-West Championships, slips in a side-door attempt to get that item back into play.

Blucas proposes: “All final championship contests shall include one team representing teams from PIAA Districts 12, 11, 4, 3, 2 and 1 and one team representing teams from PIAA Districts 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, and 5.” In short, a return to East-West bracketing.

The motion fails on a first-reading basis, 19-10. Thank goodness.

Clearly, the move is propelled by basketball, which just last year featured two championship games with teams from the same district: Plymouth-Whitemarsh and Penn Wood from District 1 in Class AAAA boys and Bishop Guilfoyle and Northern Cambria from District 6 in Class A girls.

But as written, the proposal would have affected “all sports.”

Not sure that would have gone over well in, say, field hockey. In that sport, there are 129 schools in the eastern districts and 15 in western districts in Class AA. It’s worse in AAA: 138 schools in the east and 13 in the west.

Same for lacrosse, which is currently one class. There are 127 schools in the east, 34 in the west.

The imbalances that exists statewide in many sports, icnluding football and basketball, are why the PIAA erased the old East-West lines to begin with.